Sunday, January 31, 2010

Have you ever been to Coldstone Creamery?? If not, I will bake you a cookie, because you are missing out.

Kyler introduced me to Coldstone's in Lawrence our first year at KU. It was love at first sight. I don't believe in love at first sight with humans. With Coldstone's, it was legit.

There is a big counter of different ice creams. You can get cotton candy ice cream. You can get cake batter ice cream. You can get chocolate cake batter ice cream. You can pick any toppings you want to go along with the ice cream. I recommend chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.

I love Coldstone's. Last year they had a contest where anyone could come up with their own creation and enter it to be picked by them as a new official creation. I called mine "Double Dipped Delight" (because it has to have a super lamesauce cheesy name). It was made with White Chocolate ice cream, strawberries, pretzels, and fudge. I ended up going to the 3rd round, which was pretty awesome. I didn't go farther because it all depended on people votes, and the majority of the people I knew didn't have a Coldstone's that was closer than an hour and a half away. But that is totally okay, because I still won a 50 dollar gift card to Coldstone's!!! Me and Kyler most def took advantage of that gift card today.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

When I say in the "About Me" section that I have a lot of time on my hands, I mean I have a lot of time on my hands. I don't expect to change the world with this blog or acquire thousands of followers. I used to love to write, anything, and I haven't done that in a long time. I'm not sure why, but I have been wanting to start something that I can freely say whatever I'm thinking if I feel I need to let it out, like some awesome new music I've found, a really great new book I think others should read, or some frustrations and (rare) happiness with the Army, who is my husband's real wife for the next 3.5 years (me being the mistress, of course!). If no one reads this, I'm okay with that! If they do, great. If I am boring myself, I will assume if there is anyone reading out there, they are definitely bored too and I'll try to at least not put myself (and you) to sleep.

This is me and my entire life aka my husband, Kyler!

We've been together since our Senior year in High School. We're both 21 now and he is the macaroni to my cheese. I have so much fun with him, and I know I am one of the luckiest gals in the world to have found a guy in my teeny tiny hometown of 4000 people who loves me with all his heart and treats me amazingly. He's in the Army as a Satellite Communications Operator. He's in schooling right now, learning how to keep communication open in case Osama is spotted. Not really, I have no idea what he does because it's classified (I know that sounds cliche, but no jokes.)

"Epiphany" has long been my favorite word in the English language. I'm not really sure why, except that I think it sounds pretty and I also like the meaning. One of the things that really made me want to start writing was an epiphany I had a few nights ago. Thus, the title of my blog, where I so wittily combined my name with my favorite word. Manda-piphany. Get it?......It sounded cool at the time.

Anyway, this epiphany came after watching the movie "My Sister's Keeper". Anyone seen that? If not, it's about a teenage girl, named Kate, with cancer, and her sister, who was basically farmed and brought into the world to be a donor to Kate. I laughed, I cried, I cursed mutated cells. But at the end, I just felt like, what am I doing with myself? I am so lucky, and I take that for granted every single day. I'm healthy. All of my limbs work properly. I have plenty of food, a warm house, the option to go to school and be anything I want. The world is so beautiful all around me and I know in my heart that God is there to help me through anything. I can go to the bathroom and press a button and the nasty is gone. That sounds so simple, but do you know how many people there are in the world that would cry of joy just to have those things? Yet I find myself complaining because Checker's put mayonnaise on my burger when I specifically said "NO vomit inducing gloop". I thought of all these things and honestly was disgusted with myself. How did we get to be so ungrateful? How did I? I don't know.

Not only that, I looked back on the past few years and realized there are so many things I didn't do because I was too scared to, for various reasons. When I go to the ice skating rink, I hold the ledge the whole time. I would love to just go out in the middle and not worry about if I fall, or what people will think if I fall. I worry way too much about what people will think. I worry and I worry and I worry until there is no more room left. I will think of the worst possible thing that could happen in any situation and convince myself that it will. Why do I do that? I realized I do that so I can't be disappointed. If I expect the worst, there's no surprise, right?

I decided that's no way to live. It is such a waste to go through life being lazy and not having fun because I'm too scared. Too scared to fail, too scared to be disappointed, too scared of what others will say. Why worry about all of that? One of my favorite quotes has become "20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do, than by the things you did do." I don't know who said that, but high five. I don't want to be disappointed. I don't want to look back on my life and ask myself why I wouldn't leave the ledge at the ice skating rink. The next time I go skating, I'll venture out, and I guarantee I'll have 100% more fun than any other time.